Printed April 14, 2026
By Nikki Reisch, Director for the Local weather and Vitality Program, and Lili Fuhr, Director of the Fossil Economic system Program, on the Heart for Worldwide Environmental Legislation.
Governments and local weather leaders collect this month in Santa Marta, Colombia for the First Convention on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. This landmark convention is going on as thousands and thousands endure from devastating and illegal wars, and the worldwide financial system reels from oil value shocks. The duty for these attending is evident: to not debate whether or not to section out fossil fuels however to find out how to do it — quickly, pretty, and in keeping with science and the regulation.Co-hosted by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands (April 24–29), the Santa Marta convention will collect greater than fifty nations from all over the world to work on implementing a managed, financed, and equitable fossil gasoline phaseout. That the gathering is going on is itself progress, significantly after many years of obstruction on the United Nations Framework Conference on Local weather Change (UNFCCC), the place a handful of nations have held local weather motion hostage and made fossil fuels taboo.
The keenness the convention has generated — and the written submissions it has elicited on methods to beat financial dependence on oil, fuel, and coal, remodel provide and demand, and advance worldwide cooperation and diplomacy — alerts a turning level. The momentum for coordinated world motion to maneuver away from fossil fuels is unstoppable.
This convention couldn’t come at a extra essential time, because the escalating local weather disaster, mounting geopolitical turmoil, and violent conflicts deepen human struggling, upend economies, and lay naked why continued dependence on fossil fuels is a colossal vulnerability. It has by no means been extra pressing to go away behind oil, fuel, and coal than it’s at the moment.
CIEL, together with different civil society organizations, Indigenous Peoples, and frontline communities, shall be current in Santa Marta. We’ll push States to behave in keeping with their current authorized obligations to section out all fossil fuels — together with by advancing a Fossil Gasoline Treaty that may govern a simply and rights-based transition.
What’s a Fossil Gasoline Treaty (FFT)?
A FFT is a brand new, binding authorized instrument that might handle the worldwide section out of fossil fuels and construct a secure and sustainable future for all.
The Responsibility to Section Out Fossil Fuels
Lower than a 12 months in the past, the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ) clarified that States have obligations beneath a number of sources of worldwide regulation to forestall local weather hurt and shield the local weather system. The courtroom additionally affirmed that States have an obligation to cooperate — successfully and in good religion — towards that finish. Assembly these obligations requires coordinated motion to deal with the first driver of local weather change: fossil fuels.
The implications are clear. States should cooperate to deal with the insurance policies, norms, and practices that lock in fossil gasoline manufacturing, facilitate enlargement, delay phaseout, and maintain the fossil financial system. This contains eliminating mechanisms like Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) that enable fossil gasoline firms to demand compensation when governments take local weather motion, probably making it prohibitive for nations to adjust to their phaseout obligations. The regulation requires ending new fossil gasoline licensing and public subsidies; halting the buildout of oil and fuel — particularly within the ocean; tackling petrochemicals used for merchandise like plastics and ammonia; and rejecting harmful distractions like carbon seize, offsets, and geoengineering, which solely extend the fossil gasoline period and introduce new dangers.
Why Santa Marta Should Advance a Pathway for a Fossil Gasoline Treaty
A legally binding worldwide settlement centered on fossil gasoline provide—a Fossil Gasoline Treaty—would offer a framework for nations to cooperate successfully on the phaseout of oil, fuel, and coal, and handle the transition in a simply and equitable method. In doing so, it could fill a governance hole on fossil fuels, whereas complementing and supporting current multilateral processes beneath the UNFCCC and the Paris Settlement. These processes focus largely on local weather motion on the nationwide stage, together with by way of nationally decided contributions (NDCs) for emissions discount and adaptation, with help and finance primarily based on historic accountability and fairness.The Santa Marta convention affords a vital alternative to construct help for the negotiation of a Fossil Gasoline Treaty that facilitates reciprocal and collective State motion towards a fossil-free future. A Treaty would allow nations to align timelines, form how phaseout unfolds, take away limitations to the transition, and scale back the prices whereas growing the advantages of leaving oil, fuel, and coal behind.
What a Credible Transition Requires
As States collect in Santa Marta, a number of points have to be on the desk:
Eliminating Boundaries to Section Out
States can’t adjust to their authorized duties to section out fossil fuels in the event that they danger being sued by fossil gasoline traders for big sums of cash. But,ISDS permits simply that, making it prohibitively pricey for States to curb fossil gasoline manufacturing, consumption, licensing, and subsidies as science calls for and the regulation requires. At Santa Marta, we’ll search for States to acknowledge ISDS as a structural barrier to phaseout and take steps to dismantle it.Speculative, ineffective, and dangerous responses to local weather change, comparable to carbon seize, offsets, and geoengineering, are further limitations that delay phaseout and divert sources from confirmed local weather options. These harmful applied sciences perpetuate the parable that we are able to “handle” emissions relatively than section fossil fuels out. As a substitute of subsidizing such approaches, public funds needs to be directed towards measures that forestall additional local weather hurt by rooting out its supply: fossil gasoline manufacturing and use. Governments should additionally help strict limits on geoengineering and advance a world non-use settlement.
Transferring Towards a Fossil-Free Ocean
The fossil gasoline trade is more and more turning to the ocean as a brand new frontier for oil and fuel improvement, regardless of the authorized and scientific crucial to section out fossil fuels. Halting the enlargement of offshore oil and fuel — beginning with an finish to new licensing — is a crucial step for States to satisfy their authorized obligations to forestall marine air pollution and local weather hurt, as clarified by the Worldwide Tribunal for the Legislation of the Sea (ITLOS) and the ICJ. Marine well being is vital to ecological integrity, human rights, and local weather stability. Defending the ocean is significant for all life that is dependent upon it. There might be no fossil-free future and not using a fossil-free ocean.
Reducing the Business’s Lifeline
Santa Marta wants to deal with drivers of fossil gasoline provide and demand past vitality — particularly petrochemicals like these utilized in plastics and ammonia. As demand for fossil fuels declines within the vitality and transport sectors, the fossil gasoline trade is more and more counting on petrochemicals to maintain progress. A reputable transition requires that States halt petrochemical enlargement — particularly new plastics and ammonia infrastructure.
Financing the Transition
A simply transition away from fossil fuels have to be funded by these most liable for the local weather disaster. Which means that the biggest cumulative polluters act first and quickest to section out fossil fuels, in addition to present sufficient finance and help to low revenue nations, together with debt aid, reparations, and contributions to deal with mounting loss and harm from local weather change. Sufficient funds can be found if they’re simply allotted appropriately. Ending the subsidies that prop up the fossil financial system, together with financing and tax breaks for fossil gasoline manufacturing and speculative applied sciences, and defunding militarization and warfare, would release billions if not trillions in public finance that may very well be put towards a simply transition.
Delivering a Simply, Rights-Based mostly Transition
To chart the trail to a livable, fossil-free future for all, the discussions in Santa Marta have to be grounded within the regulation, rooted in human rights, and attentive to calls for for justice and accountability. That requires centering communities, honoring the management and information of Indigenous Peoples, and listening to these on the frontlines of the local weather disaster and the forefront of actual local weather options. The fast and equitable transition away from fossil fuels is not going to be dictated from on excessive or administered top-down. To attain transformational change, we should remodel the best way we make coverage and take motion, making certain significant participation by these whose lives and livelihoods, histories and futures are on the road.
Phasing out oil, fuel, and coal is not only a scientific necessity and a authorized obligation, it’s additionally a possibility to interrupt free from a harmful system. On the journey to a fossil-free future, Santa Marta could be a turning level the place a ‘coalition of doers’ commits to a devoted discussion board for coordinated motion on fossil gasoline phaseout, together with a follow-on convention to start negotiating a Fossil Gasoline Treaty. Nations should cooperate successfully to go away oil, fuel, and coal behind in order that, collectively, we are able to stroll the trail forward.
